I accused Negroponte of being heartless, dishonest and amoral, not of violating the law. For a job that important, we want something more than just a clean rap sheet. However, what you’re describing – “carrying out President Reagan’s policy of ‘crushing the Sandinista government’” – was illegal, under the Roland Amendment. Furthermore, Negroponte’s various accusers charge him with, among other things:
arranging a secret deal with the Honduran government by which the CIA would pay Honduran generals in exchange for allowing the Nicaraguan Contras to operate out of Honduras;
denying knowledge of any human rights abuses by the Honduran military despite having been thoroughly briefed about such by his predecessor, Jack Binns;
supervising construction of the El Aguacate air base which was used as a training camp for the Nicaraguan Contras as well as a detention and torture center, and where 185 corpses, including two Americans, were dug up in 2001;
lying to Congress, and to the public, while collaborating with the Honduran military in full knowledge of what its death squads were doing – even to the point of falsifying State Department reports to Congress to conceal human rights abuses;
falsely denying knowledge of the torture and murder of 30 nuns by a Salvadoran death squad on Honduran soil;
active involvement in seeking more guns for the Contras - “the role that normally would be reserved for the (CIA) station chief.”
arranging the illegal Iran-Contra deal by putting American mercenaries together with a contact in the Honduran armed forces.
Now, if you want to argue that these charges are false, if you want to look at the cited sources for all this and demonstrate that their evidence is insufficient, I’m sure we’ll all listen to that. But don’t try to tell us any of the above, if true, was lawful, or justified, or part of an ambassador’s proper duties.
If this is how the piece of shit behaved as a diplomat, what can we expect from him as a spymaster?
Nitpick-you’re speaking of the Boland Amendment, BrainGlutton, which did NOT make overthrowing the Sandinistas illegal-it banned funding the contras. It was already illegal to overthrow another government by U.S. law.
I.e. anything that members of a different party dislike must be good? Murder, torture, kidnapping, no matter what? And you talk about “childish whining”?
Any time you’re ready to discuss human rights abuses and Negroponte’s role in fostering them, there are a number of people ready and willing to go into them with you.
Meanwhile, we have here an example of the Bricker Standard for Appointees, itself a subset of IOKIYAR: Any Republican who hasn’t technically been criminally convicted of something major and relevant must be a good choice. Any opposition to him is therefore childish whining.
High time for you to accept a little fucking responsibility as someone fortunate enough to be a citizen of a wealthy democracy, innit?
Well, to give you a little historical perspective, some of us remember when it was a democracy where we had the freedom to speak our minds on issues such as this, and where the Senate was supposed to advise and consent to such appointments.
Miranda: “O brave new world that has such people in’t!” Prospero: “'Tis new to thee.”
You’re right, of course. I always get those mixed up. The Roland Amendment was what got the Zygortians in trouble for harvesting humans as a food supply and kidnapping Vanna White as a sex slave. Of course, the matter was dropped when their telegenic, puppy-like representative testified before Congress. Oh, how I miss Bloom County!
What’s really distressing is that Bush and his supporters don’t even seem to feel they need to make any effort in denying things anymore. Nixon would have at least gone through the effort of covering up the facts. Reagan would have told a heartwarming story. But with Bush we getting, “Yeah, my attorney general approves of torturing suspects and my new intelligence chief helped kill nuns. So what? I’ve got a majority in the Senate so they’ll be approved and I’ll never face another election. I can pretty much do whatever I want now.”
Let’s not get ahead of ourselves. I don’t know if the Admin has issued any statements re the charges against Negroponte, either to deny them or to defend his actions as justified at the time. When his nomination comes up for a vote, we’ll see what we see. Most likely he’ll go through what Condi Rice went through – an hour in the hot-seat getting scolded, some noisy impotent posturing by frustrated Dems, then an easy confirmation vote; but maybe, just maybe, his seat will be a littler hotter than hers was – and then Bush or his team will have to say something about that. Let’s hope.
BTW – how much power will the National Intelligence Director actually have? From what I’ve read, he won’t even have authority to set the intelligence agencies’ budgets; most of that will remain in Rumsfeld’s hands.
Thus comes, once again, one of my own personal beefs with the Bushiviks: the Reagan Papers. As many of you already know, since I have little qualms about belaboring the point, the Reagan Papers were due to be released to historians some years back. Their release was blocked by Executive Order, citing, as I recall, some concerns with national security and sensitivity to the feelings of the Reagan family. To a darkly suspicious lefty, such as myself, this reeks of cover-up. Of all the abridgements of the Constitution for which no serious consequences ever ensued, the Iran-Contra boondoggle must rank in the top five. Want proof of Negroponte’s involvement and awareness? Its right there. And if Negroponte is as innocent of involvement as Reagan was innocent of cognition, that proof is likely there as well.
And you will see those papers when you pry it from thier cold, dead hands or at the next Dem administration, whichever comes first.
America’s involvement with monstrous regimes in Central America is one of the most repulsive and shameful episodes in our history. I find it difficult to imagine that all of this carnage swirled like a tornado around Negroponte, and he remained unsullied. (I used the words “diffiucult to imagine” to demonstrate my capacity for titanic understatement…)
Update (sorta): The New York Times, 3/29/05 (http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/29/politics/29negroponte.html), has a major article about Negroponte. It reviews his career history and the controversy over his nomination and refers to him as being “about to move to the center of that world, as the first director of national intelligence. His task will be to coordinate 15 spy agencies . . .”
Hey, wait just a goddamn minute! What’s this fait accompli bullshit?! Doesn’t he have to go through a confirmation hearing? I know the Pubs control the Senate, but this article should at least tell us when the hearing is going to be!
It recently occurred to me that, amid all the recent media furor over John Bolton’s confirmation, there was not a whisper about Negroponte (who, unlike Bolton, might have some actual crimes against humanity on his record). So I googled his name and found a recent Newsday article which refers to him (already) as the “new national intelligence director”: http://www.newsday.com/news/politics/wire/sns-ap-briefing-bush,0,2003308.story?coll=sns-ap-politics-headlines (It says Negroponte is now providing Bush with his weekly intelligence briefing, a job formerly done by the CIA director.) :eek: How did this happen? I’ve been googling Negroponte every week or so and nothing ever came up suggesting his confirmation hearing was imminent. Was he confirmed by the Senate or not? When? And how did they manage to get that through without igniting an even bigger media firestorm than the one over Bolton?!
I always thought that only political maneuvers were the reason how inept guys like this could be approved, but after the Terry Shiavo debacle it is clear to me congress has a poisoned (or ignorant I should say) well of sources of information.
And with those sources of information congress continues making worse laws and decisions like this one.
For the nation’s sake, I do think we have to investigate where those sources are coming from.
Oh, how I miss Bloom County!